Most OS or computer programmes require them in one form or another to let you know that whatever it is you have asked the software to do is actually being done or processed. But a lot of the time they represent a “digital limbo”, offering little information into the actual progress of the task and often just implying that your computer has crashed.

Borne from the frustration of this, Raphael Vangelis (who admits to spending of his life “swearing at the computer because it’s crashed or isn’t working”) created this incredible animation, capturing well known loader icons and turning them “into something analogue and playful”.

The result is an homage to all the lost time we collectively spend in digital limbo in the hopes of sudden development on our screen.

How many can you recognise?

I got about half of them. The rest I either didn’t recognise in time, or was simply mesmerised by the detail involved in crafting each one!